


the one where you fly and i don't

by Mx_Carter



Series: i'm never coming home [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dogs, Episode Fix-It: s02e13 Mizumono, F/F, Hannibal Lecter's Finishing School For Select Young Murder Interns, Lesbian Abigail Hobbs, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, Pre-Murder Family, fucked up people feeling fucked up feelings, sad gay murdergirl hangs out with sad adopted murderdad and some dogs, so your other murderdad killed your first love wyd??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-29 16:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15076688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mx_Carter/pseuds/Mx_Carter
Summary: In a corner of her head that Hannibal never thought to touch, Marissa saysFuck that shit.Abigail adapts, evolves, and gets started on her becoming. She also has a lot of conversations.





	the one where you fly and i don't

For a second, Abigail sees the tender ache in Hannibal’s eyes, the gentleness of the hand he cradles Will’s face in, and a stupid childish part of her thinks maybe everything will be okay. Maybe they can still save this, still leave together.

Then she notices the knife, curved and brilliant silver in Hannibal’s hand.

Suddenly, Will has a tear through his stomach, and his blood is splattering down from where Hannibal’s hand is holding the knife inside him and onto the kitchen floor. Abigail can see it mixing with the broken glass and Agent Crawford’s blood, which hasn’t even started to dry yet. When Hannibal’s done gutting him, he wraps his arms around Will and pulls him in, cradling him like something precious, someone he’d never dream of hurting, hushing him as he sobs.

Hannibal once told her, in one of their long, dizzying conversations where anything could be said, that Will was filled with fear, ruled and constrained by it. He doesn’t look scared anymore. In a serious amount of pain, sure, but he’s leaning into Hannibal like the man who’s just sliced him open is the only solid thing in the whole world. Abigail’s fear is still growing, a writhing mass spreading through her brain and body.

The worst has just happened to Will. Her worst isn’t here yet, and she is shivery with the cold of her dread.

If Hannibal can’t forgive Will, there’s no hope for her. She already knows how he’s going to kill her. He’ll hold her in his arms, like he did in her old kitchen, and he’ll cut her throat. Her blood will leave her body at a gallop then a stumble, as she falls to the floor like a broken marionette, and mix with Will’s and Agent Crawford’s. The forensic teams who comb through the house after it’s all dried won’t know where to start with it.

Hannibal’s bleeding too, red streaks under his nose and around his mouth. She’s never seen his skin broken before, and behind the fear she feels a dull surprise that his blood looks just the same as anyone else’s.

“I wanted to surprise you, Will,” she hears through the pounding of her heart and the wet gasps of Will’s breathing, “and you, you wanted to surprise me.” Hannibal lowers him, almost gentle, and then lets him go and Will thuds to the floor with a choked-off cry.

Abigail can see, in her mind’s eye, how she would run forward, throw herself to her knees and press her arms tight over Will’s stomach, keep the blood in. If she could only get her legs to move, if only she could be a bit stronger, a bit less terrified. But Will is bleeding out on the floor and Hannibal is crying and everything is falling to pieces, nothing will ever be right again. The two men are talking, voices breaking, but she can’t make out a word they’re saying.

Then Hannibal looks at her.

His eyes are glazed with tears, but his gaze is steady and cold, and she knows that he’s decided.

“I forgive you, Will,” he says, “will you forgive me?” All of a sudden, that seem shockingly rude of him, to ask for someone else’s forgiveness before he kills her. But then, this isn’t about her. She’s not dying for her sins, but for Will’s.

Just for once, she thinks dizzily, she’d like her death to be about her.

Hannibal holds out a hand to her, and she stares at it, limbs freezing as her heart races. It feels exactly like having her dad’s hunting knife to her throat, like her heart is trying to fit as many beats in as possible, fulfil its purpose to the very best degree before it can’t anymore. If she takes his hand, it will force her blood to fountain out of her neck, spraying across the kitchen in the arc of his blade. She can see it, on the concave projector screen inside her eyelids when she blinks. She knows exactly how it will feel.

“Abigail, come to me,” Hannibal commands, because she’s taking too long, spoiling his design. If she waits longer perhaps he’ll drag her in front of Will so her blood will splash onto him, and force her to keep still for the blade. It would be so undignified, so unfitting for the picture he wants to paint. Much better if she comes to him meek as a doe, the obedient daughter walking to her death.

In a corner of her head that Hannibal never thought to touch, Marissa says _Fuck that shit._

In one jerky move, hardly daring to believe she’s doing it, Abigail pulls Dr Bloom’s gun out of the back of her pants, cocks it and aims it at Hannibal’s chest.

Everything stops. Will’s gasps fade into the background, her heartbeat begins to slow and it’s just her and her target, like she’s back in the forest for one more hunt. Hannibal’s face is blank, but it’s not his normal, carefully curated calm. It’s more like he just doesn’t know what expression to make. This might be the first time Abigail has ever surprised Hannibal Lecter, and she treasures the sweet burn of triumph that gives her, low in her gut.

The fear has ebbed away, now she has a weapon in her hand and she knows she won’t be walking quietly to her death, whatever happens now. She’s as calm and still as a winter lake.

“Go,” she tells Hannibal, voice still shaking.. “Go like we were going to, or I’ll shoot you.”

His head has been turned to her since he first beckoned her over, but now he turns his body too, gives her his full attention. It feels good, she can’t deny it, and for a moment she wishes she’d let him do what he wants to do to her, just so she could feel his arms around her as he kills her.

“Abigail,” he says, voice so soft, so kind, “you’re out of practice. Are you sure you won’t miss?”

She doesn’t trust her voice to answer, so Abigail raises the gun until she’s aiming at his head. Choosing the smaller target as an unspoken challenge.

Garret Hobbs, lifelong hunter and, in his youth, state shooting champion, taught her to fire a gun. Even unpractised, she _knows_ she’s not going to miss.

Hannibal’s hands are out in front of him, placating, soothing her as if she were a startled animal. But she’s not startled, not anymore.

“Go,” Abigail repeats. A tear drips into her dry mouth and spreads salt over her tongue. She keeps the gun steady.

Her eyes meet Hannibal’s, and in them she sees something that might be respect. Then he looks back to Will.

“You heard her,” Will chokes out.

Hannibal nods once, turns on his heel and strides away.

Abigail keeps the gun trained on him until he leaves the room, then she keeps it aimed at the doorway until she hears the front door closing. Then she’s on her knees beside Will, tucking herself behind him and wrapping her arms around him, pulling tight. She tries to remember advice from the first-aid courses she took, years ago now, but all she can think to do is keep pressure on. Will cries out brokenly when she presses down, but his arm is on top of hers, squeezing with all the strength he has left.

“Where’s Jack?” he gasps, words laden with pain.

“Who?” she asks, voice too loud now the panic is starting to filter back in, as Will’s blood boils hot through her jacket sleeve.

“Agent…Crawford,” he gets out, and she can’t help thinking how surreal it is that this is when she learns Agent Crawford’s first name.

“He’s in the pantry,” she says, and then “I don’t know if he’s alive, still. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Will.”

“Shhh,” Will tells her, like she’s the one bleeding to death on the floor, “it’s okay, I called an ERT, we’re going to be okay, I promise…” He trails off when she presses down harder, because she’s _sure_ that she’s not doing enough.

“Stop talking,” she sobs, pressing her face to his shoulder as she holds his guts inside him. “Stop talking, you’ll make it worse.” He listens, and his other arm comes up to wrap loosely around her, hand flopping into her lap.

They stay like that, him gasping out breath after breath, her crying into his shoulder and pressing tight against his belly, until the paramedics get there.

As soon as they come in she yells, “In here, he’s been cut across the belly, there’s a man behind that door and he might be still alive, I’m okay, there’s a woman out front who went though a window” and then she’s just yelling because they’re pulling her away from Will and he’s going to die if they don’t put pressure on, he’s going to _die._

In her ear, the one she has left, someone with a kind voice says it’s okay, they’ll take care of him, everything’s going to be okay. Darkness rises up behind Abigail’s eyes, and she falls into it willingly, lets it swallow her up and bear her away.

 

~~~

 

Abigail wakes the next morning in a hospital bed, and quickly realises that no one has the faintest idea what to do with her. She sympathises.

Once the doctors have established that she’s physically fine, she gets passed off to the FBI and a string of careful interrogations. She tells them just enough of the truth of her captivity to make herself look like a helpless victim. It’s not hard, not when that’s what everyone expects her to be.

More difficult to answer are the questions about her father, but Abigail manages to dredge up tears she didn’t know she had left. A pale, scarred girl sobbing into her hands about how her dad was going to kill her if she said anything, how she was so scared people would think she was some kind of monster, how _Dr Lecter said I shouldn’t tell, not anybody_ freaks her interrogators right out, and she spares a moment in the restrooms afterwards to be contemptuous. Agent Crawford wouldn’t have gone so easy on her.

In between, she manages to get the nice agent escorting her to tell her what happened to the others. Will, Dr Bloom and Agent Crawford have all pulled through, apparently, and are all in the same hospital. When she asks if she can visit them, voice trembling, Mr Agent pats her on the shoulder and tells her she’ll be cleared soon, he’s sure, it’s not like she’s done anything wrong.

Abigail thinks of Nick Boyle’s flesh tearing open under her knife, and smiles sweetly at him through her hair.

Once the FBI are finally satisfied that she really is just a helpless, frightened little victim, they set her up in some kind of safehouse. Mr Agent goes to get them both some lunch, and Abigail sits on the bed and just breathes.

Hannibal is long gone by now, Will and Dr Bloom are going to live, no one suspects her of anything criminal, and she is free as the proverbial bird. Entirely unguided for the first time since Hannibal came into her life. It’s dizzying, brilliant, absolutely terrifying.

For one traitorous moment, she thinks how much easier it would have been to let Hannibal kill her. She could be lying cold and empty in a mortuary drawer right now, all the blood cleaned off by careful, impersonal hands. No more pain, no more fear. Her body would be claimed by some distant family member, buried under a headstone she has no interest in, and left to rot into the soil in peace.

She digs her nails into her hand and sends little lightning bolts of pain shooting up her arm, clearing her head. _If you want to die so much_ , she thinks viciously at herself _I’m sure Hannibal will oblige the next time you see him_.

Abigail doesn’t question that she’s going to see Hannibal again. It seems a fact, immutable as the changing seasons.

She kicks off her boots, lies down on the surprisingly comfortable mattress, and passes out before she even registers she’s tired.

 

~~~

 

Will is still asleep when she shows up at the hospital, but apparently she has great timing, because he wakes up after less than fifteen minutes.

When the nurse shows her in, she can’t help but stare at the thick stripe of bandages over his stomach. Will doesn’t smile at her, but he meets her eyes, and from him that’s practically a hug.

“The doctors said he knew exactly how to cut you,” she says, and immediately kicks herself for it. Will’s eyes darken and he looks away. “It was surgical. He wanted you to live,” she tells him, feeling sort of like she’s apologising and not sure who for. Hannibal, for doing this to Will? Herself, for trying to make excuses?

“He would have left us to die, you and me both,” Will replies.

“But we didn’t.” She doesn’t want to admit to being angry with him, not when he’s in a hospital bed. But it’s there, cool and simmering. “We were all supposed to leave together,” she says, well aware that she’s twisting the knife. “He made a place for us.”

Will winces. “Abigail-“

“Why did you lie to him?”

Looking up at the ceiling, he says “The wrong thing being the right thing to do was too ugly a thought.”

She unpicks that with the care it deserves. Ugly, like he’d said murder was ugly when they both know it isn’t. Will’s still fighting it, because of course he is. She’d thought he was done with that, after that serial killer Hannibal had sent to his house. Then again, she’d though Will had killed Freddie.

Even after all the terrible consequences of that, Abigail still can’t help but be glad he didn’t.

“He gave you a chance to take it back,” she pushes forward, not ready to concede yet, “but you just kept lying.”

Now Will looks at her again, but there’s no anger. She’d sort of expected anger, she knows she’s being an asshole, but he just looks so tired. “If you’re so invested in what he wanted for us, why point a gun at him?”

Abigail tells him the first thing that comes into her head. “Because I didn’t want to die.” It’s true, but whether it’s the whole truth, she can’t be sure.

Will nods. “It would have been a kind of dying,” he says, voice soft and meditative. “Taking it back. Letting myself slot into the place he made for me.”

“Sometimes you have to die, a little bit,” she says. “Cut off the parts that don’t work anymore.”

“Purification,” Will replies. “Like a forest fire. Do you feel purified?”

“In some ways.” The anger is slipping out of her grasp, because what’s the point, really? Will did what he felt he needed to, and she can respect him for that. It must take a lot of strength, to fight so hard against a thing you want so much just because you know you shouldn’t want it. “Do you?”

“I feel like the words left over after the book has ended. Discarded, unnecessary.” There’s bitterness in his voice that calls to her own, the useless anger she knows is childish but can’t stop feeling. _Why did you leave? Wasn’t I enough for you? Was I worth so little that you could just kill me and walk away unchanged?_

Will changed Hannibal, as surely as Hannibal changed him. She’d seen it happen over the course of months, carefully concealed but there under the surface of every action. Whether Abigail had ever even knocked a hair on Hannibal’s head out of place, she doesn’t know. The idea that she hadn’t hurts like the scars on her neck and ear do sometimes; a nagging, bitter, useless pain.

“We don’t have an ending,” she says. “He didn’t give us one yet.”

“Yet,” Will says slowly, “implies that you’re going to give him another chance.” He meets her eyes again, just for a moment, and she realises that he wants her to be the one to say it.

Of course he does. He can’t let her hare off after a serial killer all alone, and if she’s decided, then it doesn’t have to be his idea. Will needs to go to Hannibal as much as she does, feels the trailing strings as keenly, but he wants her to absolve him of the need to fix it.

Covered in bandages and unable to even sit up, she can’t help but feel tenderly towards him. But she’s not going to be his excuse for letting himself have this. Abigail isn’t that nice, not anymore.

“We can talk about that when you’re out of hospital,” she says, and rest her hand on his shin. Will looks at her like he’s still not sure she’s real. At least he’s not looking at her like she’s an angel anymore.

 _He sees me_ , she thinks, and she can sort of understand why Hannibal would risk arrest and the death penalty to stay another few minutes with Will.

Abigail perches on the end of Will’s bed, and they sit in a weirdly comfortable silence until his doctor shoos her out so he can rest. Before she goes, Will grabs her hand and holds on tight. “Come visit tomorrow?” he asks – begs, almost. When she agrees, he loosens his grip, goes to let go.

Back at Port Haven, before everything changed, Abigail had sometimes hated Will. He’d been so intense, so confusing; she’d never known where she stood, what she wanted from him. But after everything that’s happened, a lot of things have become easier. Will is like her, a survivor of the same disasters. They’re bonded by death, by tragedy and blood and Hannibal Lecter. He saved her life, and now she’s saved his.

Abigail leans down and presses her lips against his forehead. When she pulls back they smile at each other, identically watery smiles.

 

~~~

 

The third time she leaves Will’s hospital room, someone is waiting for her in the corridor.

“Miss Hobbs,” the guy says, “a pleasure to finally meet you.”  She recognises him, but her mind is still on her conversation with Will, so it takes a second to figure it out. Besides, she’d thought he was still in prison.

“Dr Chilton,” she replies, smoothing out her face and widening her eyes, “um, why are you here? Wait, sorry, that was rude. Sorry.” She blinks hard and directs her gaze at where the legs of the chair he’s sitting in meet the floor.  

“No harm done, I’m sure,” Dr Chilton says. His voice puts her back up before she notices. “The same cannot be said for you, or for Will Graham.”

She doesn’t really know what to say to that. How would Abigail Hobbs, traumatised victim, react right now? How the hell does Dr Chilton expect her to react?

Chilton pushes himself upright with a wince, and smooths his palms down his jacket. “May I walk you out?”

“Sure,” she says, and he gives her a smile she thinks is meant to be kind. God help her. Hannibal might have been what Marissa would have termed _shit-your-pants scary_ when he put his mind to it, but he’d never been _smarmy_.

They walk in silence until they reach the lifts, then Chilton starts talking. Talking at her, really. She gets the sense her only function here is to listen. “I’ve spoken to Will Graham about our friend Hannibal Lecter already, and I wondered if it wasn’t time to speak to you.”

“Will never said you’d visited,” she murmurs.

Chilton smiles thinly. “Between you and me, my dear, I don’t think he likes me very much.”

 _Can you blame him?_ she carefully doesn’t say.

“I asked our Mr Graham if he wouldn’t be interested in continuing his therapy with me. We were making good progress, you know. I could have gotten Hannibal Lecter out of his head with a few more months.” He sighs wistfully. “Of course, Mr Graham proceeded to put the man right back in there as soon as he possibly could, so who knows? Therapy only works if you want it to work, after all.”

Well, at least she now knows what he’s angling for.

“You were in therapy, weren’t you,” he asks abruptly. “With Dr Bloom. But Dr Bloom couldn’t save you from the wolf in our midst any more than she could save Will Graham. She couldn’t even tell that the wolf was there. Do you think that means she threw you to him, in the grand scheme of things?”

The gut-punch of her anger shocks her, and she has to wrestle the muscles of her face back to stillness. _Maybe if you wanted to protect Dr Bloom so much, you shouldn’t have pushed her out of a window._

No-one’s asked about the window, not yet. She thinks they all assume Hannibal did it, and Dr Bloom didn’t correct them. Why she didn’t correct them is anyone’s guess.

Probably Abigail should go and ask her. Probably, she should also say sorry while she’s there.

Chilton must take her silence as an invitation to continue. “I believe the only way Will and yourself are ever going to heal from what was done to you, is if you find some closure from it. I also believe the easiest way to achieve that closure would be to have Hannibal Lecter behind the walls of a secure facility, where he belongs.” _Your secure facility, right?_

“Do you want me to talk to Will?” she asks, keeping her voice small.

For that, she gets another of Chilton’s patronising smiles. “I think Will Graham would listen to your counsel more closely than he would mine, don’t you? He certainly likes you better.”

“Thank you,” Abigail says, curling her arms around her waist like she’s hugging herself.

“Of course,” Chilton says in a considering tone, “Hannibal Lecter liked you better too. You got to walk out of that kitchen without a scratch. Why is that, do you think?”

Abigail almost laughs in his face. Of course, the press don’t have details about what exactly happened at Chandler Place, it’s a fair assumption to make, but still. This guy actually considers himself an expert on Hannibal? “Dr Lecter didn’t like me better. He cut off my ear, and he was going to kill me.” It isn’t difficult to let anger bleed into her voice.

“And yet he spared your life.” Chilton’s curiosity feels like water weeds tangling over her skin. “Hannibal Lecter is not a man much prone to mercy. You would be an interesting exception.”

“I’m not that interesting,” she says, keeping her eyes trained to the floor. A year ago, she’d be terrified right now, at having someone who treats criminals for a living looking this closely at her. It’s surprising to realise the fear isn’t there. All she can find is amusement and vague contempt. In hindsight, Hannibal framing this guy for his crimes is _hilarious_.

Chilton hums noncommittally. “You may wish you weren’t.” The lift _dings_ and he turns and steps into it. Abigail doesn’t follow him. “I know I do,” he says as the doors close.

Thankfully, by that point he can’t see her burst out laughing.

 

~~~

 

Abigail drives Will home from the hospital in his own car. He has to take serious painkillers, and he passes out within minutes, head lolling to show his throat. She doesn’t mind. Driving has always been peaceful for her, and Will could use the rest.

She’s been dog-sitting for him, which also neatly solved the problem of her own homelessness, and making the journey to Baltimore every other day. By now, the drive is as familiar as driving to her dad’s hunting cabin used to be. Will is asleep enough that she can play music without waking him, melancholy indie stuff that Marissa always called pretentious. Still, she’d learned to play some of Abigail’s favourites on her lovingly maintained guitar, and had even mentioned writing a song, in that off-hand tone she’d used to talk about things that mattered to her.

Abigail never got to hear that song, whether Marissa finished it or not. She does remember a couple of times Marissa had played bits of a melody she hadn’t recognised, just guitar and her humming a tune. Sometimes Abigail goes to sleep with it bouncing around her head.

Will starts to blink back awake by the time they hit Wolf Trap, and he’s dazed but conscious when she pulls up to his house. The dogs normally come running anyway, but when she helps Will out of the passenger side they go totally batshit. Thankfully none of them jump on him, because they’re the best dogs ever – Abigail makes sure to tell them that, at length. They follow the two of them inside like a fluffy honour guard, and once Will is on his bed, propped up by pillows to take the strain off his sliced-up abdominal muscles, Abigail gently lifts them on to the bed to get some love. Max, Harley and Winston are too big for her to pick up, so they just crowd around the bed and hit each other with their wagging tails.

Will sleeps for most of the next week, leaving Abigail to keep herself occupied. She’s working her way through his bookshelves, and she gets to go on long walks with the dogs. The woods here aren’t much different from the ones back in Minnesota, and she keeps feeling the phantom bump of a rifle against her hip.

Maybe she’ll ask Will to teach her how to fish, when he’s steadier on his feet. She thinks she’d like to learn, and she knows he’d like to teach her.

Maybe, however things go, she’ll end up teaching him how to hunt too.

The early autumn air is already crisp and slightly smoky, probably from a neighbour’s bonfire, as she treks back to the house with the dogs at her heels. At first, when the pack all go tense and alert, she thinks they’ve seen a squirrel or something. But when Harley and Buster take off towards a corpse of trees at the back of the property she sees the car. Then she sees the woman with the riot of red curls scrambling back into it as the barking dogs run towards her.

“Harley, Buster, down,” Abigail yells. Harley runs back to her without complaint, but Buster keeps jumping up at the car, barking his stupid little head off. When she gets to the car, she grabs his collar and yanks him down, murmuring soothing words to him until he’s a bit calmer. “I’m going to tell your dad on you,” she tells him, and he actually whines, the poor baby. She sends him back to the others, but when Max and Winston trot over as replacement guards, she gives up. At least they’re better behaved.

“You can come out now, Freddie,” she says. “They won’t bite.”

“Won’t they?” Freddie Lounds replies as she pops the car door and gets out, remarkably composed for how rattled she was a few moments ago. “I suspect their owner’s trained them to attack me on sight.”

“No, that’s just Buster, he’s like that.” Abigail folds her arms. “Why are you here?”

Freddie smiles brightly. Somehow, those smiles never look false, and Abigail can’t help being impressed every time. In her own way, Freddie’s right up on Hannibal’s level. “Because I wanted to talk to you, of course.”

Ignoring the funny warmth that wants to bloom in her stomach, Abigail glances around. “Which is why you parked round the back. Okay.”

Freddie sighs and runs a hand through her hair, a tic Abigail’s never seen before. Looking at her, Abigail notices that she’s dressed casually – for her, at least. She’s still perfectly put together, but there’s something off about the way she’s holding herself, a weird edge to her smile.

With a jolt, Abigail realises that Freddie is _nervous_.

“Well, I’m a _persona non grata_ around Will Graham these days, even if he does still owe me another interview. Or several, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“Why does he owe you an interview?” Abigail can’t help but ask.

“Oh, didn’t he tell you?” Freddie says brightly. “I helped him almost kill Hannibal Lecter.”

They end up walking round the property, since Abigail refuses to let Freddie into the house. She saw the colostomy bag photos, she’s not going to make the same mistake as the hospital porters. And while she doesn’t have the same knee-jerk distrust of Freddie that Will does, she knows she needs to be careful. Whatever the traitorous butterflies in her stomach might have to say on the subject.

“So,” Freddie asks, “how was being held captive by the Chesapeake Ripper?” It’s so brazen that Abigail laughs, loud and shocked. She should have known Freddie wasn’t going to baby her.

“Is this going to be a chapter? Or did the book get scrapped after I died?”

“We can go off the record if you insist.” Freddie tries to pass it off as casual, but Abigail doesn’t buy that for a second. Nothing has ever been off the record with them before.

“Did you miss me that much?” she asks, trying to make it sound like a joke. It doesn’t work.

Freddie stops walking suddenly, swivelling to face her. “Look, Abigail, I don’t do feelings. Pathos and emphatic language, sure, but indulging my own emotions tends to get in the way of a good story. So please understand what I mean when I say that yes, even though I’m certain you’re a murderer and were at least somewhat conspiring with Lecter, I did miss you. I did mourn you.”

Mind going completely, embarrassingly blank, all Abigail can think to say is “It wasn’t your fault.”

Freddie smiles, a different sort of smile, one Abigail has never seen before. It’s all turned in on itself. “It wasn’t only my fault. I was so focused on Will Graham, I didn’t see the monster behind him, pulling both your strings.”

“So you admit you were wrong about Will?” Abigail asks.

“Oh, God no.” Freddie starts walking again, and Abigail has to take two quick steps to draw level with her again. “I was absolutely right about Will Graham. I was just a bit early.”

“Well, you’re wrong about me,” Abigail insists. “I didn’t kill Nick Boyle, and I didn’t know about Hannibal, not till he found me in Minnesota.”  

A perfect ginger eyebrow goes up. “I did say off the record, didn’t I?”

“I really didn’t know about Hannibal,” Abigail mutters, and Freddie smirks.

“A friend of mine at the FBI confirmed that you were helping your dad with his murders, so it isn’t exactly much of a leap.” She smiles when Abigail flinches. “Don’t worry, that’s not going in the book. Or any book, actually.”

“Why not?” Even Abigail can see that however Freddie spins it, this would make a great story.

“Because,” Freddie says, gaze skipping between the treeline and the earth at their feet, “Will Graham got me to promise not to write about you, to let you rest in peace. And despite you being alive and well, it’s a promise I intend to keep.”

All gestures are relative, Abigail thinks. From Freddie, the faithful keeping of her word is enough to knock the breath from her.

“You say it wasn’t my fault,” Freddie continues, softer than Abigail has ever heard her, “but I don’t know how far I can believe that. And I’ll be off-centre until I fix this, as much as I or anyone else can. So.” She blows out her next breath, and it puffs steam into the cool air.

“Thanks, Freddie,” Abigail says, and smiles at her. Freddie smiles back, and for once Abigail is sure it’s not just an incredibly good fake.

Then the wall goes back up behind Freddie’s eyes, and she’s as charming and impenetrable as ever. “Does that mean you’ll let me into the house?”

“Nope,” Abigail says, and Freddie sighs.

“It would have been a beautiful article,” she says mournfully. “Think of the page views.”

“Sorry,” Abigail tells her, and doesn’t mean it at all.

They’ve circled back to her car when Freddie speaks again. “Are you sure you’re safe with him?” For all her shameless slander on the subject of Will, she seems genuinely worried.

Abigail lets her lips curve up into a sharp, cold smile, the one she's pretty sure she got from Hannibal. “Are you sure he’s safe with me?”

She doesn't know what reaction to expect, but Freddie laughs delightedly. “God, I wish I hadn’t made that promise. You’re a marvel, Abigail Hobbs.”

Abigail has to duck her head so Freddie won’t see the smile turning genuine, and probably a bit sappy.

Watching Freddie drive off aches, somewhere small and deep, but it can’t be helped. Whatever torch she may or may not be carrying for this woman, Abigail knows Freddie isn’t going to extend her truce to Will. If she’s planning on sticking with him, she’ll be a way for Freddie to get to him. They can’t really talk anymore.

At her feet, Winston whines. She sighs, scratches behind his ears, and leads the dogs back to the house.

 

~~~

 

Across the table from her, Will sits straight-backed and uneasy. He looks like he used to, unkempt hair and scruffy clothes, that semi-feral, preyish look. When he meets her eyes, she thinks she can see something behind them, running, desperate.

Between them sits one of those centrepieces Hannibal adores. It’s sort of like the statue from his office, only in this one the stag has a spear sticking out its side. Instead of standing tall and proud, it’s twisted in agony, mouth open on an eternal bellow of pain. If she squints, Abigail can almost see the blood dripping down its flank, black on black. She wonders if whoever killed the stag will honour it, like it should be honoured, or if they’ll just take its antlers as a trophy and leave it to rot.

Hannibal comes in with three plates, and serves them like the classiest waiter ever. Then he settles at the head of the table, smiling small and proud at both of them.

“Eat up, my loves,” he tells them, and she and Will move in synchronity to fill their forks with slices of meat.

As soon as she tastes it, Abigail knows.

With the terrible slowness of nightmares, she looks up from her plate to where Marissa’s body is now laid out as the centrepiece. She’s wearing a white nightdress stained black with her blood, and Hannibal has surrounded her with roses such a deep red they’re the same colour. It’s beautiful, she’s so beautiful.

Will smiles mechanically at her and eats another slice of Marissa’s kidney. In his eyes, the stag dies over and over again.

Hannibal is looking at her, face as kind and remote as a god, and under his loving gaze Abigail takes another bite. At least, if she eats every part of Marissa, every muscle and organ, every scrap of bone and hair, she can keep her inside forever, make her part of herself. Maybe then it won’t be murder, maybe it’ll be like Marissa never died–

Abigail bolts upright, drenched in sweat and gasping. By the time she’s got her breath back, the nausea is rising, and she stumbles out of her bedroom and to the bathroom to vomit up her dinner. Thank God it was fish, as it so often is these days. Will doesn’t eat meat anymore, and Abigail goes along with it at home to make him feel better.

Cannibalism doesn’t tend to bother her anymore. Right now, though, she can see the appeal of going pescatarian.

 _I’m not Dad_ , she thinks, pressing her forehead against the cold plastic of the toilet seat. _I didn’t want to eat her, I didn’t, that wasn’t me._

 _Wasn’t it?_ Hannibal murmurs in her ear, the one he didn’t take. _Not even a little?_

Abigail snarls and jerks herself upright. She nearly steps on Jack, who leans against her leg and whines.

“Sorry, puppy,” she croons, and crouches to hug him. With her face pressed into warm dog-smelling fur, the chilly tendrils of the nightmare begin to unravel from her brain. Jack licks her neck, and she lets out a watery giggle.

Jack trails her downstairs to get a glass of water, and as she’s rinsing her mouth out in the sink she realises Will and the dogs aren’t in their beds. Refilling her glass, she walks through the moonlit front room to the door, Jack at her heels, and sees the dogs on the lawn. She tugs one of Will’s coats over her pyjamas, stuffs her feet into her boots and goes to join them.

Will is sitting on one of the battered chairs on his porch, glass of whiskey on the armrest and Ellie perched comfortably on his lap. His head jerks up when he hears the door opening, but he relaxes when he realises its her.

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?” he asks.

Abigail sits down on the other chair, the one that’s so creaky she’s a bit scared she’ll fall through. Now he knows she’s comfortable, Jack trots off to hang out with the other dogs. “If you did, I’m grateful.”

“Bad dreams?” Will asks, and she smiles without humour.

“Oh yeah. Really bad.” She tugs the coat tighter around herself, but can’t say she minds the chill. Hannibal had always kept his houses warm, central heating in every room. In her nightmares, the temperature goes up and up, until every breath feels solid with heat and scent. The night air is wonderfully cleansing. “You too?”

“Oh yeah,” he echoes, taking a sip of whiskey. “I woke the dogs up, and they were too nervy to go back to sleep, so we’re having a late-night party.”

“Some party.” Abigail takes another big gulp of water. Her mouth is starting to not taste of vomit anymore, which is nice.

“You wanna talk about it?” Will asks, and she shakes her head. While she knows Will won’t judge her, she’s not ready to share this particular corner of her fucked-up psyche with anyone.

“Do you? Your nightmares must be pretty crazy.”

Will’s lips twitch. “The perils of an active imagination.” He’s quiet for a while, watching Buster and Zoe play-fight. “I was so angry, and he was right there, and I had a hunting knife.” He doesn’t have to say the name; it could only be one _he_ , for both of them. “I caught him and cut his throat, only as I was drawing the knife across…” He trails off, carefully not looking at her.

“He turned into me,” she finishes. Will nods, clenching his jaw.

“While I was trying to stop you bleeding out, he crouched down beside me, but he wouldn’t help. He said if I hadn’t fought him, if I’d just waited till he gave you back to me, all this could have been avoided.” His voice is quiet and bleak, like a man reading his own obituary.

“Did I die?” Abigail asks, unable to help herself.

Will nods, hands running over Ellie’s fur. “Yes, you died. I couldn’t save you.” He closes his eyes. “Sorry.” Whether he’s apologising for letting her die in the dream, or for telling her about it in reality, she can’t be sure.

“It’s okay,” Abigail tells him, and his lips twitch into a smile.

They sit in silence, watching the dogs, until she feels the sudden pressing need to ask. “If you’d known I was alive, would you have still fought him?”

Will rubs at his forehead. “Honestly, I don’t know. He killed a friend of mine.”

For a second, Abigail is confused, but then she realises. “Oh, Beverly Katz.” Hannibal had told her about it afterwards. She remembers her relief, that the threat to Hannibal had been stopped. She doesn’t want to remember her dim admiration at how elegantly and evocatively Hannibal had displayed her body, but she does anyway, and it sits badly in her gut. Beverly Katz must have been a pretty incredible person, if Will ‘Crazy Dog Man’ Graham counted her as a friend, and Abigail hadn’t mourned her. Hannibal wouldn’t have honoured her in death, not like how someone like that should be honoured.

“He killed someone of mine too.” She doesn’t mean to say it, but it slips out with a memory of Marissa’s rare, brightest smile that she keeps tucked in a locked room in her fledgling mind palace. Or at least, she tries to keep it locked. Marissa always had a way with locks, and other things that tried to keep her out of somewhere she wanted to go, or in where she didn’t.

“Do you forgive him for it?”

That’s the question, isn’t it? _I forgive you, Will. Will you forgive me?_ Hannibal had never asked for her forgiveness, never thought to. If he’d ever seen Marissa as more than a rude little girl to use as a trap for Nick Boyle, he must have assumed Abigail was over it. “I want to. Things would be easier if I did.”

“But you can’t, can you?” There’s a softness, an understanding in his tone and it sticks suddenly in her throat like a pin through a butterfly. For a second she can feel blood cold and sickeningly slick on her forehead, taste it in the back of her throat.

“Can you forgive him for Beverly Katz?” she asks, more than a little cruel, and she feels like an asshole when Will just takes a sip of his whiskey and closes his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he replies. “I’d need to see him again, to look him in the eye. Then I’d know.”

 _Keep telling yourself that_ , Abigail thinks. “Would she forgive you, for forgiving him?” she asks, curiosity winning out over her desire to be nicer to him.

Will snorts a laugh. “No, no, I doubt she would.” Memory clouds his eyes as he scratches behind Ellie’s ears, but Abigail doesn’t ask. Will’s memories of his friend are his own, and she doesn’t deserves to know them. “Would Marissa forgive you?”

Now it’s Abigail’s turn to laugh, imagining the look on Marissa’s face “Hell no, she’d be so pissed off.” Will grins at her and somehow it’s funny, even though it isn’t.

Dr Bloom had told her once that the day you can think about the people you’ve lost and laugh is the day you’ll realised that you’ve begun healing. It’s not that Abigail thinks she was wrong, necessarily, just that she hasn’t had a very conventional grief. Can you heal from someone’s murder while you’re making nice with their murderer?

When they stop chuckling, Will gives her a cautious, considering look, and she can read the question in his eyes. “We weren’t dating,” she says, and the words taste bitter on her tongue. “Not really, anyway. We might have done, if –“ If what? _If she hadn’t been so scared of being open with anyone, even me? If her mum hadn’t been such a homophobe? If Dad wasn’t a serial killer and I wasn’t helping him? If I hadn’t been so terrified that she’d find out?_

_If I hadn’t been so terrified that Dad would see her hair and her freckled cheeks and start planning a hunt?_

Marissa had been hanging from the antlers in her nightmares since long before she’d hung from the antlers in the hunting cabin. Somehow, Abigail doubts that’s a good foundation for a relationship.

“Beverly and I might have dated,” Will says, “or just been friends. Or she could have moved to another city and we’d never have seen each other again. I don’t know. I don’t know what would have happened.” _He took that from us_ he doesn’t say, but it’s there in his voice.

Pointing out that Will dating Beverly Katz would have been the fastest way to get Hannibal to kill her won’t be helpful, so Abigail keeps her mouth shut.

Will turns his head to catch her eyes. “He was the man on the phone. Your mom and dad are dead because of him. Marissa Schurr is dead by his hand. He manipulated you into becoming a murderer, and then he locked you away where nobody could get to you but him.”

Abigail rolls her eyes to hide how deeply the words cut at her. “Yeah, I noticed all that.”

“I know you did,” Will says. “I’m just trying to understand why, after everything he did to you, you still want to go and find him.”

“You know why,” Abigail says, too loudly. It startles Ellie, who shakes herself, jumps down off Will’s lap and runs off to hang out in the front yard with the other dogs.

Eventually, Will says “Yes. I know.” His voice is rough, like it’s been dragged out his throat. He takes another gulp of his drink.

“Sorry,” she says, after a minute, and he waves it away.

Abigail holds her silence until the question bursts out of her. “Do you care?”

When Will looks at her quizzically, she elaborates. “That I’m, you know. A lesbian.” As she asks, she realises this is the first time she’s said it out loud. She never came out to her parents; never worked up the nerve. They must have suspected, but they’d never talked about it. They’d never talked about a lot of things, in her family.

Will’s brows furrow. “Abigail, I couldn’t care less what you are.” He holds her gaze for a second before his eyes skitter away. “I just want you to be happy. That’s all.”

It sounds like something her mum would have told her, but not meant, not all the way. She has no idea what her dad would have said. Whatever it would have been, Abigail thinks she likes this better. That…doesn’t hurt. Maybe it should, but Abigail is done with shoulds.

“Do you remember,” she says quietly, “when I told you that killing my dad doesn’t make you my dad?” Will nods jerkily, and she presses on. “But you know, me choosing that you’re my dad, that counts for something.”

She’s pretty sure Will has stopped breathing.

Abigail takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what you are, to me, if there’s a name for it. I’m not always sure what I am to you. But I think family comes into it. Somewhere.” She grinds to a halt, unsure if she’s said too much, or not enough.

“Abigail,” Will says, then stops. Instead, he reaches out and takes her hand in his.

Without letting herself think too hard about it, she gets up and resettles herself on his lap. She and her dad had done this thousands of times, since she was a baby. But this feels different. When Will loops a careful arm around her waist to hold her steady, it’s with the understanding that the moment she wants to stand up, he’ll let her go.

Will isn’t going to keep her with him, if she wants to leave. He wants her there, sure, but he’s not going to murder eight girls because he can’t bear to let her move on, to grow up and be free of the stifling fog of his love. The reason that horrible, sickening moment in the hunting cabin had been so horrible and sickening is that, except for then, she’d felt safer with Will than she could remember being with her dad in years.

She rest her head against his shoulder, and he wraps his arms around her in a loose hug. Together they look out at the stars.

“You’re kind of heavy, you know,” he teases, and _oofs_ good-naturedly when she elbows him.

In revenge, she asks, “So. You and Hannibal – “

“I am going to need _so_ many more drinks before we go there.”

They look at each other, and then start laughing. Because it isn’t funny, except how it is, and if they don’t laugh they’ll cry.  Their laughter rings out into the cold, fresh night air and sets Zoe to barking at the moon.

 

~~~

 

Agent Crawford comes to visit them after the first snow. He goes to the barn first, where Will is fixing up the boat motor with half the dogs milling round him, and stands in the doorway. Abigail sits inside, the other half of the pack curled up around the couch with her, and wonders idly what they’re saying to each other. Do they have anything to say to each other, anymore?

They don’t talk for long. She expects Agent Crawford to go back to his car, but instead he crosses the snow-covered yard and knocks on the front door. Not knowing what else to do, she lets him in.

“Hello, Abigail,” he says, somehow managing not to look awkward.

“Hi, Agent Crawford,” she replies, definitely looking awkward as hell. Then, because her mom would have died of shame if she didn’t, she offers him coffee.

“That would be lovely,” he says, and “it’s not Agent anymore, I retired.” There’s a sardonic edge to his smile that suggests his retirement wasn’t by choice, and a little hateful part of her feels glad. She squashes it. It would be petty to hate someone for being right.

Crawford sits down at the battered kitchen table while Abigail makes two cups of instant; he takes his coffee black, and gratefully. It reminds her, suddenly, of the police chief back in their little Bloomington suburb, and she’s not why. The two men are different as chalk and cheese.

Chief Woods had been one of her dad’s few good friends, and the three of them had hunted together sometimes. That was one of the reasons she’d given to the FBI to explain why she hadn’t turned her father in – Woods was jovial but deeply incompetent, and would have told her dad about the _weird story your daughter told me the other day_ no matter how many times she begged him to keep quiet and take her seriously. It was one of the reasons she’d given Hannibal too, the first time he’d asked.  

Would she have done differently, if Crawford or someone like him had been in Woods’ place? Abigail knows Crawford wouldn’t have dismissed her.

If she’s honest with herself, like she tries to be these days, that would just have been one less excuse for her to hide behind later.

When they sit down together at the table, she sort of expects him to start with _How have you been_ or something inane like that. Instead, Crawford jumps right in. “They tell me you pointed a gun at Lecter in his own kitchen. That must have taken guts.” He sounds grudgingly impressed

 _Lecter_ , that’s his name now. She knows for a fact that Hannibal and Crawford were on first name terms. But she supposes she can’t fault the guy for wanting some distance. It’s what anyone normal would seek.

“Well,” she says, curling her hands around her mug to warm them, “it wasn’t really my guts I was worried about.” Crawford snorts at that, lips twitching into a smile. Then his face smooths out.

“Would you have killed him? If he hadn’t left?” Abigail is used to the focused laser of Crawford’s gaze by now, and she finds she can lie through it.

“No, sir. I’m not a murderer.”

Crawford gives her a flat look. “You’re a liar, Abigail Hobbs,” he says, and she has to put real effort into not freezing. Of course, he knows she killed Nick Boyle, even if he can’t prove it.  For a moment he regards her, then he sighs. “But you’re a damn good one, and I have bigger fish to fry right now.”

There’s real pain in his eyes, and Abigail is sure now that this goes beyond wounded pride and his own injuries. Hannibal did something, took someone or someones from Crawford, and he seems like a man who protects his own. Abigail remembers the papers after he defended Will at his trial, probably risking any chance of catching Hannibal in the process, and guilt bubbles up from her gut. “I’m sorry I let him get away.” However much of a lie it may be, it feels like the thing to say.

A flash of anger crosses Crawford’s face, before he swallows it down. “It’s alright,” he says, turning to stare at the ceiling. “Nothing to be done about that now. I’ll just have to catch him again.”

“It’s a lot harder to hunt something after you’ve failed to bring it down the first time,” Abigail says. “It knows your scent now, and it knows you want to hurt it.”

That gets her a funny, twisted little smile. “You know, Will said something very similar to me once. Only his metaphor involved fishing.”

“One you stalk,” Abigail says, glancing down at the table as she remembers, “the other you lure.”

“You’re a hunter, aren’t you?” Crawford asks, but there’s no bite behind it. “Planning on doing some stalking, since the luring didn’t work out so well?”

Abigail looks out the window, to the barn where Will is working on the boat motor. “I don’t know,” she says, and Crawford sees right through her.

“What are you going to do once you find him?” he asks, and this time when Abigail says “I don’t know,” she isn’t lying.

What if Hannibal’s decided she has to die, no matter what? What if he just wants to toy with her, to see what she’ll do if he starts ruining her life more than he already has? What if he tries to kill Will again?

On reflection, travelling to another continent to find the cannibal who killed your…someone, manipulated you every which way, faked your death, very politely kept you prisoner for three months and then tried to murder you is not the sanest or smartest idea.

“Well,” Crawford says, leaning forward slightly, “I know what I’m going to do. What I want to know is, do you plan on stopping me?”

And this, Abigail reflects, is where going up to bat for a murderer gets complicated. There’s no doubt in her mind that Hannibal deserves to die for all the awful, awful things he’s done. The problem is, she’s not sure how much she cares about who deserves what anymore.

Her dad killed nine people, her mom among them, and would have killed her too, if he'd had his druthers. But as hard as she tried not to at first, she mourns him and misses him and loves him, dearly. She’s killed, has attempted to kill, and has aided and abetted two other killers – not worth the death sentence, sure, but she definitely deserves to be in prison for the rest of her life. But she’s lied her ass off to the FBI – also a crime, now she thinks about it – to make sure she never sees the inside of a cell.

Hannibal is a monster in an entirely different league to her dad. He kills for his own amusement and ruins people’s lives because he’s bored. When Hannibal eats people, it’s to shame and degrade them – or maybe just that he doesn’t see the vast majority of people as people. It’s only cannibalism, after all, if you’re equals, and Hannibal is far too narcissistic to believe himself equal to anyone, even Will. He murdered Marissa and left her to dangle, stuck through, in her underwear like a puppet with its strings cut; like she was nothing more than a piece of meat. If anyone deserves to die, it’s Hannibal Lecter.

Sometimes, Abigail has to wonder what went wrong inside her, that she still can’t say she wouldn’t act to save Hannibal’s life.

“I don’t have a plan,” she tells him, because after every lie she’s told him, he deserves the truth from her now. “But I’m not going to take a bullet for him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good,” Crawford says. He goes quiet, then a flicker of pain crosses his face, and he reaches up reflexively to touch his neck, hidden behind his scarf. All at once, Abigail starts giggling.

Crawford slants a look at her, and she calms down enough to say “Sorry, just. We have matching scars now.”

He blinks, and then chuckles. He looks years younger when he laughs. “So we do, so we do.” Then, after a considering look, he reaches up and unwinds his scarf.

His scar is smaller than hers, a stab instead of a slash. It’s raised and a very dark red, but it’s healed neatly. She wonders how he feels about it, whether he sees it as a mark of failure, or if he views it with pride that he got close enough to gain it. Would he feel better if she told him that after a few months, you don’t even notice it’s there? Or does he not place any more importance on it at all? She can’t say for sure; Jack Crawford is a hard man to read.

Abigail brushes her hair over her shoulder to leave her scars bare too, and there’s neither pity or disgust in Crawford’s eyes, just a calm acknowledgment of what was done to her, of what she did. In another life, one where she wasn’t a murderer with a serial killer dad, she thinks they would have gotten on.

“Good luck,” she tells him when he leaves, and is surprised by how nearly she means it.

“Happy hunting,” he replies, and tips his hat to her before he settles it back on his head and strides out into the cold.

 

~~~

 

The tiles of the kitchen are cool and hard beneath her, having not yet drawn out her body heat. Actually, the whole room is colder than she can ever remember it being, central heating finally ground to a halt. There’s no fruit bowls or spices laid out, and the herbs have died in their pots from neglect. She thinks she can see dust gathering on the stainless steel prep table, the one that always reminded her distantly of a mortuary slab. It adds a strange unreality to the whole place, like this can’t actually be Hannibal’s kitchen, not really.

Hannibal’s home had always felt to her like an extension of his personality, a beautifully constructed monument to his tastes and his power. Without him in it, the whole house feels empty and lifeless, like an abandoned shell.

Abigail’s so lost in thought that it takes her longer than usual to hear someone else moving through the house. Wheels squeaking, a door drifting open. For a moment it confuses her, but then she remembers Will had said Dr Bloom was in a wheelchair, and her blood runs cold.

Shit, she isn’t ready for this. She doesn’t think she’s ever going to be ready.

She keeps her gaze fixed on the cabinets in front of her as the wheelchair gets closer to the kitchen, and as it turns and parks.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Dr Bloom says.

Her voice is…different, somehow, in a way Abigail can’t pin down. The intonations, inflections, they’re subtly changed. Maybe that’s what happens when your boyfriend turns out to be a serial killer and your presumed-dead former patient pushes you out a second-floor window.

Abigail can’t think of anything to say, anything that might be appropriate. Which is fine, because her throat’s closed up anyway.

“Why are you here, Abigail?”

It takes a cough to clear out her throat, but then Abigail can say “I don’t know. Looking for something, I guess.” She darts a look up at Dr Bloom, and sees more changes. Her face is harder, more closed off than Abigail’s ever seen it. “Why are you here?”

“I was looking for you,” Dr Bloom replies. “It was a good guess. The six-month anniversary.”

“Why?” Abigail’s voice chokes out, and she has to clear her throat again. “Why did you want to see me?”

“Oh, I think it’s only natural to want to see the person who pushed you out of a window.”

Abigail sucks in a breath like she’s been winded. She’d known it was coming, but she hadn’t expected Dr Bloom to be cruel. Apparently that had changed too.

At least now she can ask. “Why didn’t you tell anyone it was me?”

Dr Bloom sighs. “I’m sure you’ve realised that what Hannibal did to you has wiped your slate clean in a lot of ways. You’ve gone from the accomplice to one killer to the innocent victim of another; nobody wants to go after you for helping your father, not when you’ve just survived Hannibal the Cannibal. Can you imagine the publicity?” She chuckles dryly. “The Bureau can’t take another hit like that, not with this case. But make no mistake, Abigail, they want you on this. They would love to have someone to crucify and absolve their sins. If they knew you were helping Hannibal that night…” She trails off. “I suppose I wanted to keep your slate as clean as I could. Consider it a gift.”

Abruptly, stupidly, Abigail is angry. “I was the bait,” she snaps, making her voice cold as she can manage. “The lure. I helped Dad kill those girls.”

“I know.”

“I killed Nick Boyle. I gutted him.”

“I suspected.”

Abigail turns her head to meet eyes with Dr Bloom, who is watching her impassively. “I _liked_ killing Nick Boyle. It felt good, it made me feel powerful.”

Dr Bloom’s expression doesn’t even flicker “I don’t blame you. You thought he’d murdered your best friend, and that he was going to do the same to you.”

“I pushed you out a window!” Abigail yells, and finds she can’t sit still anymore. She jerks upright so she’s looking down at Dr Bloom, who has to tilt her head up to meet her eyes. Her face is still so fucking _managed_.

“Which is, by the way, a piss poor method of killing someone. It leaves far too much to chance.” Dr Bloom tilts her head a little to the side. “You could definitely have done better than that, and I’ve been wondering why you didn’t. Know what I think?”

Abigail shakes her head, and Dr Bloom continues mercilessly. “I think you didn’t want me dead at all. But it was you doing it or Hannibal, and at least this way I had a chance at surviving. I think you’re not nearly as bad a person as you want to believe you are, Abigail.”

“You don’t know me,” Abigail tells her sharply.

Dr Bloom smiles at her, small and not a bit soft. “But I do. I know that Hannibal didn’t threaten you or brainwash you, that you weren’t kept like Miriam Lass was. I know he promised you were his family, and then left you behind when you wouldn’t let him kill you.” At Abigail’s flinch, she says “Jack told me. I also know that despite what everyone thinks you and Will are going to do, what anyone normal would do, what you’re actually planning on is going off and finding him as soon as Will is healed enough.”

The anger drains out of Abigail, leaving her limp and ashamed. She walks over to the armchair and drops into it. Dr Bloom follows and parks herself in front of her. The position reminds Abigail of the few therapy sessions they’d had indoors – Abigail had preferred to be outside, and Dr Bloom had picked up on that very quickly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

That gets her another odd twist of a smile. “So you said.” Dr Bloom settles her arms on the side of her wheelchair, back straight. She looks regal, a queen on her throne. The old Dr Bloom advertised her competence and intelligence, but never tried to project any sort of power. If anything, she’d always done her best to even the field between herself and whoever she was speaking to.  

“I’m not angry at you, Abigail,” Dr Bloom says softly. “Perhaps I should be, but there’s no room in me for it.”

“Because you’re too busy being angry about Hannibal?”

“Oh, I don’t have words for how angry I am at Hannibal." Her smile has edges sharp enough to gut.

“What are you going to do?” Abigail asks, because of course Dr Bloom is going to do something about it. She’s not the type to sit at home and stew while someone else does the hunting.

“I’ve had an interesting job offer, and I think I’m going to take it. As it turns out, having an affair with the Chesapeake Ripper is a marketable skill.” Abigail can’t help but laugh at that, and Dr Bloom’s eyes twinkle. For a moment, it feels like it used to feel, and she wants the past back with a sudden pang.

But Abigail can’t bring herself to romanticise her time at Port Haven, when she was alone and grieving and so mixed up, so constantly guilty for living, for the things she’d done to live. Nowadays the guilt is faint and faded, like her scars will be one day. Nowadays, she knows herself better, and she’s not alone. She’s got Will and he’s got her, and together they’re going to get Hannibal. And then…

She doesn’t know what they’ll do then, and Will doesn’t either. They’ll just have to wing it.

“It wasn’t just an affair,” Abigail says quietly. “He was your friend.”

“Friendship with Hannibal Lecter is blackmail elevated to the level of love,” Dr Bloom replies evenly, and Abigail remembers the first time she’d been in Hannibal’s office, his large, dry hand curled courteously over hers as he helped her down from the ladder. _I’ll keep your secret_.

_And I’ll keep yours._

“Can you still love him. After everything he’s done?”

When Abigail doesn’t answer, Dr Bloom sighs. “You know, I wanted to save you. You and Will. I wanted to save everyone.”

“Therapy only works if you want it to,” Abigail says, and Dr Bloom hums in agreement.

“Do you think I still can?” she asks, gaze as direct and steady as the barrel of a gun. “Is there hope, Abigail?”

 _Yes_ would be kind, in some ways. Cruel in others. And, ultimately, a lie.

Abigail shakes her head.

“For you, or for Will?” Dr Bloom presses.

For a moment, she considers. Abigail knows she’s damned; Hannibal’s had her life since he wrapped his hand tight around her throat to keep the rich arterial blood from spilling out across her kitchen floor. Whatever he’s done, whatever she does now, he’s always going to be a part of her. She’s just choosing to be honest about it.

She can’t say for sure that Will’s gotten to that point yet, if he can bear to be honest with himself. But she is certain he couldn’t walk away from Hannibal any more than Hannibal could have left him without a scar to be remembered by. Abigail isn’t cruel enough to say the L-word, but it’s there, moving under the surface like some prehistoric sea monster. One day it will swallow Will whole, and Hannibal with him.

“Either,” Abigail says, and Dr Bloom sighs deeply, then nods, almost to herself.

“Then I doubt we’re going to see much of each other anymore.” She doesn’t sound particularly sad or happy about it, just neutral. A therapy voice.  

“I really am sorry I pushed you out a window, Dr Bloom.”

“I’m sorry I trusted Hannibal Lecter so much,” Dr Bloom replies. “I’m sorry I let him get so close to you, and if I could, I’d change all of it. But it’s done now, and there’s no help for it.”

“Teacup’s shattered,” Abigail murmurs.

Dr Bloom’s phone beeps, loud in the silence, and she checks it with an irritated pinch to her mouth. “Damn. I need to leave soon.” She doesn’t volunteer where, and Abigail doesn’t ask. Instead, Dr Bloom reaches into her pocket and pulls out a business card. It’s a simple, elegant design.

“I won’t say good luck, because I know what those words will mean to you, and I’d rather you and Will never crossed paths with Hannibal Lecter again. But I hope you find some measure of peace, Abigail. And if you come to believe that peace won’t be found with Hannibal,” she reaches out and offers her card. “I promise I will always take your call.”

Abigail knows she won’t be calling, but she figures she owes Dr Bloom this. She takes the card and slips it into her jacket pocket.

“Thank you,” Dr Bloom says, and then “I think you might as well call me Alana. We’re both adults here.”

Abigail’s throat is tight again. “Thank you. Alana.”

“You’re welcome,” Alana says, then she turns and wheels herself back out the kitchen, and Abigail is alone.

 

~~~

 

Everything two people need for a few weeks on open ocean, and most of the stuff they’ll need when they get to the other side, has been stowed on the newly renovated boat. The dogs have been given over to Alana’s care, though from their conversation Abigail doubts Alana is going to have time to be their primary caregiver. Still, she trusts her old psychiatrist to find a good, safe place for them.

Neither of them have anything else to tie them down to this place, or any other. They’re all set.

“Are you sure you don’t want to back out?” Will asks softly as they stand together on the pier.

Abigail snorts a laugh. “I’m not going to back out, Will, and you aren’t either. And that’s okay.” She smiles at Will’s sceptical look. “We don’t have to pretend when we’re together, right?”

In answer, Will slings an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in. She leans against him, feeling his muscles relax against her back.

“I don’t always know what’s pretending anymore, where Hannibal is concerned,” he confesses. “Too many wires got crossed, too many lies got told.”

Abigail smiles. “You know what? Me neither.”

“What a bastard,” Will says, and the affection in his voice drips over her shoulder like honey.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Our bastard.”

“Our bastard,” Will repeats, and then drops a kiss on her head. “I can live with that.”

They board the boat and set off, and once the sails are all sorted Abigail leans against the railing and watches the docks grow smaller. For a moment, she thinks she can see a girl in a leather jacket waving her off, dark hair flowing behind her in the wind.

As a tear makes its slow path down her face, Abigail waves back.

**Author's Note:**

> Just fyi, the 'Hannibal Lecter's Finishing School For Select Young Murder Interns' tag was poached off damnslippyplanet, who you all should go read.
> 
> Title from My Least Favourite Life by Lera Lynn.


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